Thursday, March 9th, 2006

Honored Teammate

posted by lizzie    « 1 Comment »    tied to Uncategorized   

As members of Team in Training we are organized into a group of runners who have the goals of bettering themselves and helping those who suffer from blood cancers as well. While most of the team are runners and athletes, we also have a few “honored teammates” who have gone through some of the most difficult and painful things a body can handle: bone marrow transplants, chemotherapy, and radiation. Running a marathon looks like fun compared to that. We have three honored teammates on our team and none of them are old enough to drive. At our meeting on Tuesday, we met Sarah, a chubby-cheeked three year-old who has been in remission for most of her life. Her mother explained that when they found out Sarah had cancer they met with a social worker who told them that 30 years ago her job had been to prepare parents to say goodbye to their sick children. Now, with the advancements in treatments, her job is to support parents as they worked through treatments that would give their kids an 80-90% chance of having grandchildren themselves. That really impressed us. We were happy to see that the cause we have commited ourselves to is a good and productive one, and that they are really making progress in finding cures for these diseases. Blood cancer is one of the most treatable cancers, largely because of the efforts of organizations like the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and it is opening the door to treating other cancers as well. We start our training on Saturday with the hope that it is never our kid, our niece or our nephew that has cancer, and the knowledge that if it is, at least we are doing something about it.

Comments

  1. Anonymous says:
    March 11, 2006 at 10:44 pm

    Wow. Isn’t it amazing to think about the trials people go through in life? I’m glad you two are running in support of finding cures and means to help cancer victims. It’s inspiring! We’ll be running the Rex Lee at the end of the month here- something on a much smaller scale, but I’m excited none-the-less. I need to look into how to help donate to your cause. I also need to inform Derek that the only reason I’m going out with him tonight is because he’ll be contributing to the funding as well!

    Becca

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